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The next big decision on gay rights won’t be handed down by judges. It rests with hundreds of
voting delegates of the Boy Scouts of America, many of them more accustomed to planning camping
trips than casting ballots on contentious social issues.

Scouting officials say they won’t release the list of delegates, including six from the local
Simon Kenton Council, who are to receive the membership resolution this month and vote on it during
the annual meeting on May 24 in Grapevine, Texas.

But the delegates surely feel the heat.

“To be fair about this, I do think they’re under quite a bit of pressure,” said John Stemberger,
a Florida lawyer and Eagle Scout who heads
OnMyHonor.Net, a new coalition pushing for the
Scouts to keep the long-standing ban on openly gay members.

Stemberger said the relative anonymity of many of the delegates makes it difficult to lobby.

“We’re trying to educate people, though we don’t know who they are,” he said. “The (national
organization) is holding that very closely to the vest.”

Voting members of the National Council include representatives from national, regional and local
boards and councils. A local council can elect one voting member to the National Council for every
5,000 youth members it has.

Jen Koma, a spokeswoman for the Simon Kenton Council, said the local board will decide how its
six representatives will vote on behalf of the council and its 23,000 Scouts. The board continues
to pore over opinions given through email surveys, letters, town-hall discussions and conversations
with donors and chartered organizations. A majority of U.S. Scout troops are sponsored by religious
denominations, including the Roman Catholic, Mormon and Methodist churches.

“People are very passionate on both sides of the issue,” Koma said yesterday. “No one decision
will make everyone happy, but we will do our best to send our six representatives with votes that
best represent the interests of our Scouting families locally.”

Both supporters and opponents of the Boy Scouts’ longstanding policy against openly gay members
say their positions are gaining steam.

Stemberger said his coalition’s website drew more than 10,000 visitors during its first week,
after a public event in Orlando that included supporters from Ohio and 12 other states.

He said that Scouting “does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation” as long as
members don’t acknowledge their homosexuality. Coalition members want the Scouts to hold to that
policy, which they say is backed by more than 100 years of tradition.

“The prohibition is against open homosexuality and promoting the gay agenda,” Stemberger said. “
You’re not going to openly snuggle around the fire, or promote gay rights.”

Matt Comer, a co-founder of the Inclusive Scouting Network, said public opinion is with those
who want the ban lifted. From the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to
support for gay marriage, Americans are showing that they won’t tolerate discrimination, he
said.

“I think the effort to win over people’s hearts and minds has already been won,” said Comer, who
was dismissed from Scouting at age 14 after helping to start a gay-straight alliance at his North
Carolina school.

He said the network has filled thousands of Scout requests for its inclusivity patches, a
multicolored square-knot patch that signifies acceptance. “It’s like a safe-space sign,” Comer
said.

Observers say the resolution that delegates will vote on could be designed to lift the ban,
uphold it or allow local groups to make their own decisions about gay membership. Scouting includes
about 2.7 million youth and 1 million adult members throughout the nation.